


he loved only you

by Whydidtheydothis



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Sadness, alfred is bitter, sort of fix it at the end, treating people badly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 16:10:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13574130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whydidtheydothis/pseuds/Whydidtheydothis
Summary: Edward's death has left alfred angry and bitter as he seeks revenge on those people he believed are to blame for edwards death and his hasty mistaken marriage





	he loved only you

**Author's Note:**

> I really wasnt sure whether to publish this but its nagged away at me for ages. Drummond death has left Alfred very angry and he's become a horrible person. Wilhelmina has done her best but she knows that she isnt who he really wants

Alfred levered himself up and off the young man beneath him, already desperate for physical distance between them. Below him, George? Henry? He really couldn’t remember, lay spent and gasping for breath. As usual the inevitable result of the pursuit left him unsatisfied and angry, the momentary relief his body got from release replaced with scorn for the young man for giving himself up so easily and disgust at himself for what he had become since Edward’s death, Edwards _murder_

George, at least he _thought_ it was George, turned over to look at Alfred, his eyes soft with bliss and love

“Must you leave already? I had hoped we could spend some time together and…” his voice faltered at the look on Alfred’s face. How could someone so beautiful look so hard?

Alfred knotted up his cravat and pulled on his frock coat “I need to return to the palace. My wife is waiting”

“Your wife?” George sat up “but Alfred you didn’t…”

Now Alfred looked at him with a sneer “didn’t tell you I was married? Why would I? You’d not have let me bed you if I had”

“But” gasped George “Alfred I thought you cared for me”

Alfred laughed bitterly “then you are a fool sir. I cared for your body and now I have had that, I bid you good day”

Alfred watched George’s face crumple without emotion and then he left the room just as the sobs began

 

“Alfred” said Wilhelmina “you have returned earlier than I expected”

“my business was completed sooner than I expected” replied Alfred his face wearing the blank shuttered look she was so familiar with. She had thought that with kindness and time, Alfred would come to terms with Edward Drummond’s death but he never had. Instead she watched him become angrier and more bitter at the world. He was kind to her most of the time. She knew he retained in the depths of his heart some gratitude for her care after Edward’s death,and he  shared her bed long enough for her to become pregnant  but if she shared his body she knew she was not alone in that and his heart belonged to no one but Drummond. How much she wished she’d never listened to her Aunt telling her that men didn’t give their hearts but only lent them because she knew now that Alfred had given his heart irrevocably to Drummond and it would belong to no one else.

“Will I see you at dinner?” she asked, she never presumed he would be there, he often preferred to be alone

“No” he replied, he did not explain, he never did

She went to him and took his hand; it felt like a dead weight in hers “then I bid you good night”

“Good night”

He watched her leave, he should never have married her, it had not been fair to use her to try and heal his shattered heart. How could he ever have thought she could fill the hole left in his soul by Edward’s death? At least he had given her children but he could never love her and she deserved love.

He went to his room and uncorked the brandy pouring a large glass. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and he stood there staring at his face. He had always known he was considered a handsome, no beautiful man, but he had never really considered what advantages this conferred until Edwards’s death had changed him. He had learned that looking as he did with his particularly ethereal form of beauty meant that people always assumed the best of him. Even as he treated them badly, made biting sarcastic remarks, rolled his eyes in irritation you could see them giving him the benefit of the doubt ‘surely someone with the face of an angel cannot be all bad?’

It made getting his revenge so much easier

He’d made a list of people that needed to be punished for Edward’s death starting with Sir Robert Peel. If Peel hadn’t made Edward be at the House that night, if he’d taken the bullet he was _meant_ too, Edward would be alive. His son William was Alfred’s first conquest. It hadn’t been hard, there were already rumours about William and so it had been easy to get close to him and exchange flirtatious looks that had escalated to clandestine meetings and finally to William giving himself to him. How Alfred had loathed the act with him, the only to get through it had been to keep his eyes tightly shut and think of Edward but then he was well versed in that, it was how he managed to impregnate Wilhelmina. He made sure that William was completely in love with before he dropped him like a stone, refusing to respond to his increasingly desperate letters. And then he had gone to see him spitting out in a low hard voice that he’d never loved him, that he’d had hated every minute with him and that if he never saw him again it would be too soon. A devastated William had joined the army and left the country soon after.

There had followed the sons of various Tory politicians all of whom had been there that night and left Edward to take the bullet. He particularly enjoyed seducing men who were married and had had no sense of ever wanting to be with a man before. Those were the best because they hated themselves even as they took pleasure from his hand or his mouth. He had even gritted his teeth and bedded a few wives and daughters if sons were not available. Every heart he broke, every person he made experience the misery he had felt, was a small victory to him.

None of it helped though, none of it erased the hole in his heart or the ache in his soul.

He went to the drawer, unlocked it and took out the only picture of Edward he had. Wilhelmina thinking it might help had managed, god knows how, to persuade Florence to give up a drawing she had done of Edward. He smoothed it out, worn with the years of looking, crinkled with the number of tears he had wept over it and let dry. That and the locket with Edward’s hair were all he had left of him. He lay down on the bed cradling the glass of brandy. He would drink himself into oblivion tonight and hope that he dreamed of Edward.

At the breakfast table, Wilhelmina eyed Alfred worriedly, he’d clearly been drunk again last night, and she’d heard him sobbing in his sleep from her room. Once upon a time she would have gone into try and comfort him, to cradle him in her arms and sooth him but she had learned now that even though that would inevitably result in what passed for him making love to her out of gratitude, she could not stop his nightmares and she was tired of trying to warm his icy heart.

The house maid came in and curtseyed “excuse me sir but there is a visitor here to see you”

Alfred was leafing through letters “I’m not expecting anyone” he said his head aching “send them away”; he was in no mood to talk to anyone

Wilhelmina looked at him with annoyance, he sounded like a petulant child, the allowances she made for him were more intolerable by the day “who is the visitor Millie?” she asked

“A Mr. Drummond madam”

 _Oh_ Wilhelmina dropped her tea cup with a clatter and Alfred started up “is that meant to be amusing Millie?” he snapped

Millie looked at him bewildered, the master was such a handsome man but always so cold and angry, he frightened her

“But that’s what he said his name was” she whispered “Mr Edmund Drummond”

“It is quite alright Millie, show Mr. Drummond into Lord Alfred’s study” said Wilhelmina gently “and go back to your duties”

The girl fled and Wilhelmina rounded on Alfred

“Really Alfred! You may take out your anger on me but not on the servants”

He looked ready to argue but she carried on

“Whoever this man is, you must see him,”

He pushed back his chair and stood up looking down at her “I intend to” he said “and madam you would do well to remember your place”

“I do remember it sir” she said “I remember I once thought that I could help you but I cannot” she tried hard to fight the tears that came into her eyes but she couldn’t. How different she had thought it would be but here she was, the mother of 3 children with a husband who didn’t love her and who, if she were honest she would rather never touched her again than lie with her with such a lack of feeling.

“Wilhelmina” he looked at her sadly “no one can help me” and he left the room

He went to his study and took a breath; Edward had been dead for 5 years, this man’s name was Edmund, it was clearly just a coincidence. He opened the door and went in. The man within turned and Alfred nearly let out a cry of surprise and pain. He was smiling at him with Edwards smile.

“Lord Alfred” he said holding out his hand “cousin Edward told me of you in his letters”

“Letters?”

“I have been in India these 5 years….sir would you like to sit?”

Alfred subsided into the nearest chair trying to control his trembling limbs, unable to process what he was seeing; this man was the image of Edward

He continued “Edward told me much about your time together and I swore as soon as I returned to England I would make your acquaintance”

Alfred licked his lips which were suddenly dry trying to recover himself “did he write often?”

Edmund nodded vigorously “oh yes, all the time, I have such a stack from him that I have brought back including his last letter written the night he was so barbarously killed”

Alfred stared at him desperately “the night he was shot?”

“Yes I have it here; I think perhaps you would like to read it”

Alfred nodded, reaching out a shaking hand

“Dear Edmund

Just a short note before I leave for dinner, I am to have champagne and oysters at Ciros with a dear friend does that not fill you with jealousy?”

 

In the breakfast room Wilhelmina raised her head, what was that noise? Those almost inhuman howls? She sprang to her feet running as she realised that they were human and were coming from Alfred's throat

In his study Alfred was sobbing, each one wrenched from him with exquisite pain as he realised that after all Edward had been coming to him and had not been angry. Edmund was awkwardly patting his arm as Wilhelmina burst in

“Alfred Alfred my dearest”

“Wilhelmina….he was coming to me” he wept incoherently “he loved me still…he was coming”

Wilhelmina pulled him into her arms cradling him and rocking him like a child as he spilled the grief of 5 years

“He loved you Alfred, only you”

Above his head she met the soft brown eyes of Edmund Drummond, how like Edward he was. Perhaps he would be able to comfort Alfred as she could not, perhaps there may yet be a way out of this terrible prison they found themselves in.

Perhaps not all hope was lost for them after all.

 


End file.
